1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for decoding an audio signal, and more particularly, to a method and an apparatus for decoding an audio signal received via various digital medium.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
While downmixing several audio objects to a mono or a stereo audio signal, information (e.g., parameters) from individual object signals of the audio signal can be extracted. This information can be used in a decoder for decoding of the audio signal.
A MCU (Multipoint Control Unit) is a device that can be used in a teleconference to articulate provided signals from a remote place through the conference call.
A conventional MCU combiner generally makes a combined signal into multi-channel audio signals. But when multi-channel audio signals having only multi-channel parameters are used in the MCU, the MCU only can control the gain and panning of one of the channels and cannot control the gain and panning of individual object signals.
A decoder receives a downmix signal and side information, and can generate an output signal using the side information. The output signal may be rendered based on other input information such as a user control or a playback configuration. In order to control the individual object signals, the decoder may receive multi-object signals and process to decode them.
However, an apparatus and method for decoding multi-object signals needs a wide bandwidth. Accordingly, a new apparatus and method for decoding multi-object signals is needed to relieve the resource requirement of a wide bandwidth. Moreover, for backward compatibility with channel-oriented decoding, a new apparatus and method is needed for providing side information corresponding to audio objects which can be converted to multi-channel parameters.